Alot of people said that their accounts got banned because they were either using proxies or VPNs.
so

1)How many of you faced this problem

2) What did you do after that

3) did you use VPN /proxy again , if yes why?

4) why do you even want to use a VPN anyways

I am more focused on the last question, why do people use VPN for world of warcraft? Does it really help reducing in-game ping ? because yes i have this high ping issue, i've read blogs where i got mixed views. So i want to ask you guys.

I used to live in Thailand so playing with a tunneling service (VPN) was almost mandatory to get the game to a playable level. I'll do my best to give you some personal insight:

1) I've never gotten banned for using a tunneling service (though I understand that Blizzard doesn't offer support for using one, though). I have, however, had my account locked a huge number of times because of the IPs switching.

2) N/A

3) Where I live now my latency to US servers is infinitely better, so I no longer need the server. Were I to live somewhere where latency would shoot above 200ms again, I would most probably use a tunneling service again.

4) Because it really does improve your latency. It all comes down to how your connection to Blizzard's servers is routed, something which is also largely determined by your ISP. In my case, it would look something like this:

Writing in caps doesn't make you more correct, it just makes you look demented. There are plenty of reasons to use a tunneling service to connect to WoW, and most of them aren't about being "dishonest" or to "circumvent something". Blizzard themselves are fine with people using tunneling services to connect to the servers, with the caveat that their automated systems can sometimes incorrectly ban you, but they'll fix it really quickly as has been mentioned in this thread already. So stop trying to think that anyone using a tunneling service is a criminal.

you are entitled to your opinion. doesn't make it right no matter how small you choose to make your print.

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Originally Posted by Templis

I used to live in Thailand so playing with a tunneling service (VPN) was almost mandatory to get the game to a playable level. I'll do my best to give you some personal insight:

1) I've never gotten banned for using a tunneling service (though I understand that Blizzard doesn't offer support for using one, though). I have, however, had my account locked a huge number of times because of the IPs switching.

2) N/A

3) Where I live now my latency to US servers is infinitely better, so I no longer need the server. Were I to live somewhere where latency would shoot above 200ms again, I would most probably use a tunneling service again.

4) Because it really does improve your latency. It all comes down to how your connection to Blizzard's servers is routed, something which is also largely determined by your ISP. In my case, it would look something like this:

Off topic - Whatttt? since when do actual Blizzard employees post on this forum?

I do not know about in the past, but there are in a few replies from official blizzard employees with accounts here.
Primarily on account issues, which this thread is related to.

Originally Posted by DeadmanWalking

Your forgot to include the part where we blame casuals for everything because blizzard is catering to casuals when casuals got jack squat for new content the entire expansion, like new dungeons and scenarios.

Originally Posted by Reinaerd

T'is good to see there are still people valiantly putting the "Ass" in assumption.

I got banned a few months ago and was using a tunneling service some of the time, it was sorted out reasonably quickly via ticket, I called them on skype and the guy was pretty nice and reassuring but couldn't really do anything, had an authenticator active at all times.

I haven't really used it since since the lag problems i was having went away.

I do not know about in the past, but there are in a few replies from official blizzard employees with accounts here.
Primarily on account issues, which this thread is related to.

That is why i actually posted over here, the answer that i can get from an official will be the most authenticated

Originally Posted by Templis

I used to live in Thailand so playing with a tunneling service (VPN) was almost mandatory to get the game to a playable level. I'll do my best to give you some personal insight:

1) I've never gotten banned for using a tunneling service (though I understand that Blizzard doesn't offer support for using one, though). I have, however, had my account locked a huge number of times because of the IPs switching.

2) N/A

3) Where I live now my latency to US servers is infinitely better, so I no longer need the server. Were I to live somewhere where latency would shoot above 200ms again, I would most probably use a tunneling service again.

4) Because it really does improve your latency. It all comes down to how your connection to Blizzard's servers is routed, something which is also largely determined by your ISP. In my case, it would look something like this:

Without VPN: 300-380ms
With VPN: 200-220ms

Thank you for your feedback, would you mind telling me which tunneling service did you use? i want to try that out, there are few ( i dont intend to mention names ) which were Okayish, but didnt give me the result against what i am paying for. Thailand isnt far from my place, i usually get 250ms+ most of the time and it shoots up to 400ms,

99% of internet users are on dynamic ip addresses so I'm not sure what crack you're smoking.

right. that is why 99% of vent abusers are easily banned BY BLOCKING THEIR IP.

next cool story bro.

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Originally Posted by Frozenbeef

Just curious, how do they ban ip's doesn't your ip address change rather frequently?

there are two types of IP, static and dynamic. the majority of IP used are static. you are given that IP by your provider for that computer. hence if you are a miscreant you can be easily tracked right to your home.

right. that is why 99% of vent abusers are easily banned BY BLOCKING THEIR IP.

next cool story bro.

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there are two types of IP, static and dynamic. the majority of IP used are static. you are given that IP by your provider for that computer. hence if you are a miscreant you can be easily tracked right to your home.

as an example I just used a popular IP tracker on myself
the following are the results that ANYONE can obtain
i have removed any personal identification from what I am posting but you can get the general idea.

If you connect via cable / television networks you get an ip from your provider (always on, no force-disconnect every 24h) = static ip, same everytime

If you connect via the Telephone network / adsl / vdsl you are in an ip-pool and usually get disconnected every 24h hours = dyamic ip or ip-range

and there you have it.

even in the case of the ip range you can still be tracked to your provider and then traced through them to you.

truly dynamic ip are not the case and often these are what malicious players use to hide behind.
even those however are not fool proof.
case in point, had a guy thought is was funny to troll our vent from one and pop right back on the second we banned his IP.

took some time but he was not laughing when the police showed up at his residence.

But how do you block people with a dynamic ip address? it's not really feasible for blizzard,mmochampion etc to track your ip and contact an isp and ask the isp to always block content for that particular thing for each ip address you have :S

You also can't just block access to a range as other cusotmers that did nothing wrong would be blocked...

But how do you block people with a dynamic ip address? it's not really feasible for blizzard,mmochampion etc to track your ip and contact an isp and ask the isp to always block content for that particular thing for each ip address you have :S

the only way to block someone who is using a dynamic IP address is by, as already stated, blocking the block of IP address that theirs populates from. the drawback is that you would ban anyone from their ISP using that block as well. it would also not be 100% because there are IP providers that use ways to get around the geographical nature of IP addresses.

right. that is why 99% of vent abusers are easily banned BY BLOCKING THEIR IP.

next cool story bro.

Just because you get the same ip address consistently doesn't make it static. ISP's use DHCP which means your IP address is on a lease. It might expire after 12 or 24 hours if no connection is present. Try turning off your cable modem/router for a day and watch it change. In some cases it will happen immediately.

Now if you're talking about your internal private IP address on the 192.168.x.x or 10.x.x.x range or 172.26.x.x range than sure those rarely change. They also aren't valid ip addresses on the internet.

But how do you block people with a dynamic ip address? it's not really feasible for blizzard,mmochampion etc to track your ip and contact an isp and ask the isp to always block content for that particular thing for each ip address you have :S

You also can't just block access to a range as other cusotmers that did nothing wrong would be blocked...

You don't. You suspend the account in question or all accounts who were on that ip address at the time of the violation. The good people will call in and get the account fixed. Blizzard has banned some ip subnet ranges in the past who were involved in gold farming from China but I doubt they would ban an entire subnet from a major ISP.